WASHINGTON — House leaders plan to break from decades of political protocol and strip billions in food stamp funding out of the stalled farm bill, Republican sources said Tuesday.

The move was unexpected and, in some cases, unwelcome among agriculture lobbyists who fear that a farm-only bill could derail the Senate-passed version that includes $760 billion in nutrition programs, most of it food stamps.

Controversy over proposed food stamp cuts, totaling about $20 billion in the House bill, helped sink the legislation June 20, with 62 Republicans scuttling the measure in favor of steeper cuts.

The Senate-passed version proposed $4 billion in cuts for food stamps, technically the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

“If you look at representation in Congress, we need support from urban legislators to pass a farm bill,” the organization's executive director Jeff Nunley said. “Typically, the way we've garnered that support is by also having the nutrition title in it.”

If the precedent of separate bills is set, he said, Congress would struggle to pass future farm bills as rural districts continue to wane.

That rural decline is evident in Texas, where 78 rural counties lost population from 1980 to 2010 while the state's total population doubled in that time, according to U.S. Census data.

House members already shot down an attempt by Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., to take food stamps out of the bill last month. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the House's farm bill would cost $969 billion over a decade and that about 80 percent would go to food stamps.

“I'm willing to do what it takes to get a farm bill done,”Lucas told reporters Tuesday. “If that means doing it unconventionally, maybe we've got to give it a try.”

South Texas rancher Bob McCann said his congressman, Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi, was receptive to his concerns about delays in approving the farm bill when they met over the Fourth of July break. McCann stressed that if the bill failed, it would be devastating for the state.

The nation's cattle numbers are at an all-time low, McCann said. Many farmers have had to sell their herds because of the drought, he added.

“We scaled our herd back 30 to 40 percent over the last four or five years,'' McCann said about his own ranch in Victoria. ``When and if this does turn around, cattle producers are going to need finances.”